A 60th Birthday Party or How not to act in a quite nice hotel

Note how I cleverly flashed out the age

When my mum’s 60th year rolled around, we decided to throw a party. This time though, we weren’t going to cobble together a bunch of crappy decorations made out of computer printouts and vegetables. This time we were going to be classy.

So, we booked a function room in our local Marriot and arranged for our family to stay overnight.

Cake

I ordered a cake from a bakery (no LumpOCake for mum – Oh no..)

Fruit cake. Which, I'm sure we all agree, is the Devil's favourite cake, and therefore..EVIL

Isn’t it pretty? But don’t be fooled – underneath that immaculate icing and edible flower spray is fruit cake. Not only fruit cake, but also marzipan. It’s like seeing a lovely plate of steak and chips only to discover that the steak is made of ear wax and the chips are made from parsnips. (Parsnips being the worse option in this scenario – obviously)

Decorations

We decorated the function room as best as we could, which to be frank, wasn’t terrific. Why are function rooms in hotels so unremittingly depressing? What is it about them? Is it the ghosts of a thousand work christmas parties, each with it’s own inevitable puddle of regretful snogging? Or maybe it’s the slight whiff of despair which lingers after a hundred Motivational Sales Training Courses. Who knows?

Can you smell it?

The Party

We got dressed in our finest clothes. I was forced into some fairly heavy duty foundation garments, which resulted in an inability to breathe, bend over or dance with any sort of elegance (That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it) and the boys were looking sharp.

Don't we scrub up well? (Olly's eyes look weird - damn you red eye extractor)

Somehow we ended up with a female DJ. I have no idea how this happened as I’m sure they’re about as rare as decent meal in Frankie & Benny’s, but I was obviously striking a blow for gender equality. GO ME! She was fab and kept the party dancing. We ran a free bar, and I seemed to have really got into the “Free Bar” thing – clearly I forgot that I was paying for the “Free Bar” at the end of the night, but my brain seemed to filter out this vital piece of information and just heard “YOU DON’T HAVE TO GIVE MONEY AT THE BAR! DRINK SOMETHING REALLY EXPENSIVE! IT’S FREEEEEEE!!” which resulted in some peculiar combinations and some quite horrendous choices.

MALIBU? What kind of sick mind would be....oh

The evening went well, everyone had a good time – Nana (of 50′s glass fame )had a boogie and everyone enjoyed the bar.

3 generations of awkward looking women

The flash makes this look as though we were dancing under much fluorescent tube lighting

Many empty bottles of many different drinks

So. Finally the DJ packed up her equipment and people started heading home. I decided at this point that there was only one way to get back to my room.

HOME JEEVES!

I’m at a bit of a loss how to end this post. I guess I could say something trite about “Good Time Had By All” or maybe something like “Wordy word word word” but instead, I think I will ask you to have a look at the new and AMAZING twitter and Facebook buttons. You can now comment from your twitter account or Facebook and I would LOVE to hear from you if you like the blog – if you hate it? Then I’m not so keen – KEEP YOUR BLOODY OPINIONS TO YOURSELF. *winky emoticon* ..No. I actually mean it. *serious face*

The End